Balchan, Urso To Undergo Surgeries

Rich Balchan has had to undergo a third surgery to repair his sports hernia injury and will miss a few more months of action, assistant coach Mike Lapper said after today’s training session.

“Rich had something where something was blocking something and that was the reason,” Lapper said. “They fixed that, and from what I hear the doctor was confident that the problem is fixed. Now he has to heal. Probably a couple months, 2-3 months. It really is disappointing for him because he added something to this team when he was healthy.”

As a rookie, Balchan saw action in 18 matches last season and scored one goal before undergoing surgery. He had a second procedure during the offseason and had been working his way back onto the field in recent weeks before suffering more pain in the last two weeks. His last first-team action came Oct 2, 2011 against D.C. United.

He is not the only Crew player who will be going under the knife in a short period of time. Lapper said rookie Kirk Urso will undergo surgery either today or tomorrow, although the coach did not know the exact nature of the surgery. Urso has been sidelined with right adductor tendonitis after starting the first five games of the season and seeing action in one more.

In addition, midfielder Dilly Duka has suffered his third setback after injuring his hamstring in the season opener at Colorado and will be shut down for the foreseeable future. Duka had been working his way back into action before tweaking the injury last week.

“Dilly won’t be around for a while,” Lapper said. “I don’t think he’s getting surgery or anything like that but we’re going to have to shut him down for a while. We’re going to have to reassess our process with him. That hurts.”

Two defenders are getting closer to being back in uniform. Center back and team captain Chad Marshall is working on regaining his fitness after missing more than a month with a concussion and left back Shaun Francis is seeing some limited practice action after suffering an ankle injury in the team’s U.S. Open Cup loss to Dayton on May 29.

Marshall has been doing conditioning at the team’s practice facility in Obetz following the team’s training sessions.

“He’s getting closer,” Lapper said. “The main thing is fitness now. He’s got to get his fitness sorted out. From MLS protocol he’s ready to join us. These are the last couple days of him going through major tests and then he should be good and then it’s just a fitness issue whether he can go.”

After making his season debut against the Dutch Lions, defender Julius James did not take part in scrimmaging today.

“Julius needs to work on his fitness,” Lapper said. “He was slated to play in the reserve game and then his back seized up on him. It was really strange. No rhyme or reason to why. Small step backwards, but different injury. When you come back from one injury, sometimes that’s how it is because your body will overcompensate. It’s not a major setback. It should be a day or two.”

He worked on the side with defensive midfielder Danny O’Rourke, who is progressing from an ankle sprain.

Forward Aaron Schoenfeld was in uniform for the first time since suffering a right plantar fascia rupture against Vancouver on April 28.

“He looked good,” Lapper said. “It’s a fitness issue. I think he’s getting used to his orthotics. It takes a while for the body to adjust. He looked pretty sharp, but the fitness, a major part of his game, is lacking. He needs to work on that. I couldn’t put a timetable on him because today was his first day.”

Francis, who did some possession work during warm-ups, will not be available this weekend against New England, Lapper said.

Finally, midfielder Cole Grossman turned his ankle during practice but was able to walk off under his own power and defender Carlos Mendes got the day off after going 79 minutes in Sunday’s reserve match. Goalkeeper Matt Lampson also watched from the sidelines with an ice wrap on his right knee.